"Carrying the cub around for hours at a time gave us a unique opportunity to bond with her," said keeper Stacey Tabellario. "We quickly became in-tune with her vocalizations, movements and sleep patterns. With past cubs at this stage, we mostly only viewed them via closed-circuit television, so this has been a great chance to learn more about cub development."

Keepers said the cub will soon begin exploring the indoor dens of the zoo's adult sloth bears while they're outside, and hope to introduce her to the adults, including Khali, over the next few months.